God of War 3 – Review
When I played the first God of War, I was thrown off by the game basically just dropping you on a boat with some bad guys bearing down on you, it seemed like a mindless beat ’em up.
I am so glad I continued playing that first game because I have enjoyed every God of War game I’ve played so far, and it makes me think about buying a PSP/NGP just to play the mobile games. This series is completely in my wheel house.
The epic scale of God of War 3 really makes this game stand out, and it happens within the first 10 minutes.
Starting the game in the midst of a battle between the Gods and Titans where you play the first few levels actually climbing around on the back of a titan that is climbing Mount Olympus and all the Gods are mobilized to stop them. It is grandiose on a scale I’ve never felt before. Many people have likened it to Shadow of the Colossus, which unfortunately I’ve yet to play (but it is coming out on PS3 hopefully this year).
I think if the game was just a beat ’em up with grand scale it would be very interesting and fairly fun, but what really puts this game over for me are the puzzles and diverse mini games. Taking a break from disemboweling a Centaur to figure out a perception puzzle (a la Echo Chrome) or a quick rhythm game really breaks up the game and makes you want to keep playing for hours. I think this is a key addition that any AAA game should aspire toward, take some solid game play and intersperse some fun little diversions.
The game wasn’t especially long, I collected just about everything in the game and still managed to finish it in about 11 hours. For me this is actually a bonus, there was no need to make the game take 20+ hours when it got across everything it needed to in 11, this felt perfectly paced without any unnecessary filler.
After I finished the game I unlocked the Developer videos, these were extraordinary, a different video for each department. It was great to see how a AAA studio works on a 3 year project. I would love to eventually work on something with this level of dedication.